No – “Chemtrails” are Not a Thing – Dr. Katharine Hayhoe

December 6, 2017

Right behind “Flat Earth” in the black helicopter hierarchy of conspiracy beliefs, are “Chemtrails”.
I’m continually amazed when I have to assure otherwise bright people that, no, chemtrails are not a thing.

She does mention that any parasol based solution aimed at cooling would still allow “ocean acidification to proceed apace”. Right now, as oceans warm, they tend to absorb CO2 (as carbonic acid) at a *slowing* rate. Cooling off without reducing atmospheric CO2 levels would actually *increase* the rate of ocean uptake for the same amount of CO2.

Katherine gives a measured and fair account. Many friends are convinced contrails are chemtrails. Some see these as awkward attempts at reflecting off sunlight to slow warming, while others suspect “complacency drugs” are being dropped on an increasingly passive populace.

If the government was indeed secretly spiking the jet fuel to ward off sunlight and slow global warming, it discovered it has the opposite effect. In a recent study by NASA they collected jet exhaust from all the way from right behind the planes to 20 miles back. This was in-part to evaluate new biofuels, which when mixed 1:1 decreased soot particles by some 25%-75% (my memory). Why worry? Because it turns out that although the particles did form ice crystals that then spread out as cirrus clouds, thus reflecting some light back up, the greater effect was like carbon dioxide magnified, trapping out-going heat. They asserted, astonishingly, that such global warming was yearly greater than all fossil fuel use in general so far. They seek cleaner jet fuel to reduce that effect.

Thanks, Dumboldguy and Greenan, for clarifying this. If I can find the Cleantechnica-posted story on this, I’ll provide the url. I had written to NASA seeking more info on this, but heard nothing back. The ‘worse than 108 years of all airplane CO2’ (per year?) seems huge.

Yes, it does seem huge and “big news”, and it’s surprising that it hasn’t been talked about more since 2011. There is a bit of “goofiness” in the link also

Think about—-“The only difference is that CO2 has a longer life than that of the contrails, and can still continue to cause warming even hundreds of years down the road”.

And—-“The researchers believe that while continuing to reduce CO2 emissions in aviation, more work needs to be done to reduce contrails as well. This reduction of contrails could present an immediate effect on global warming?. (so far, so good)

But—-“Solutions for this could include such things as creating flight plans at lower altitudes and the development of new airplane engines which would either reduce the water vapor released or immediately condense the water into ice that would drop to the ground below”.

Lower altitudes = more fuel burned, a given amount of fuel burned produces a given amount of water vapor—-how do you reduce it?, and ice cubes from the sky?—LOL

Good questions. My understanding is that the soot particles do create ice crystals, cirrus clouds, which reflect light up, reducing warming slightly, but that they serve as heat trappers both day and night, thus increasing warming. Their reports leave ambiguities. I had seen one such from NASA saying they were developing bio fuels to mix in the jet fuel with decreased that phenomena. Indeed, your reasoning seems right that lower flights would burn more fuel.

No, it is not healthy to “spray the air” with aluminum or silver or anything else that Mother Nature doesn’t put there (and some of her emanations are not all that good for some living things either). Yes, it will eventually come down—part of the great experiment by humans to see what happens to the biosphere on a 4-1/2 billion year old planet when we crud it up with our bright ideas (read profit-making “stuff”) over a span of only a couple of centuries.

Congress passed a law banning microbeads in late 2105—-to take full effect by June 2017—-many states and foreign countries have done the same, but there ares still some products available containing microbeads—-toothpastes and soaps/lotions/skin care products—-do some googling and you can identify them:

Back to contrails. For those who haven’t seen it, here’s the “rainbow lady”.

She was thought to be serious by some, but others have made some great “spoof” replies—like this one: